[V8] Dead Pot ...

[Buchholz, Steven]

... actually I had more than a little time available yesterday it seems ... when I had finished working with the 10 disc changer I decided to try to understand why the engine in #2 seems to idle so roughly, and why that car seems to have less power than #344.  John Brasil had indicated he thought that the engine was running on 7 cylinders ... which made some sense to me.  I thought I'd do the quick first test ... Pulling spark plug wires while the engine was running ... as expected the engine idle speed would decrease and roughness would increase when I removed the front three spark plug wires on the left bank ... and I could hear the spark jumping inside the spark plug hole.  (I didn't do the back cylinder as I had the engine cover and snorkels attached).  I went over to the right bank and when I got to the third cylinder back the engine didn't change when I popped the spark plug wire.  I don't remember hearing any spark jumping either.  

Next, I pulled the spark plugs for the suspect cylinder and the neighbor immediately in front of it ... second cylinder back looked almost ideal ... center insulator slightly brown and the electrodes showed no excessive wear ... the plug pulled from that suspect cylinder was fouled with oil.  I'm going to pull the dizzy cap to see if there are signs of problems there ... and I guess I'll hook up a compression gauge to get the bad news.  Has anyone found fouled plugs without having internal problems in the engine?  Perhaps I'll break down and finally get a bore scope too ... I've been wanting one for a while.  As far as I could tell the engine had seen little to no use when I installed it in #2 ... I think it was used to train techs back in Auburn Hills on timing belt replacements ... perhaps once somebody dropped something down the plug hole ... I suppose I should get that spare engine reworked and back into the car sooner than later!

Steve B
San José, CA (USA)